Um... Call me crazy, but if you allow smoking anywhere in the park, BY DEFINITION it is not a "smoke-free environment". I know, I know, there I go again, insisting that words mean things and all. This was something that irked the hell out of me every time I saw one of these signs - as a card-carrying pedant I was forced to endure these astonishingly wrong signs all over the damn park.
I mean, this isn't like a "waterproof" watch, where in the fine print you find out that it's only water tight up to 50/100/"X" meters. It's not a semantic game where only in certain context could the phrase be marginally correct. No, here the terms are mutually exclusive: One cannot have a "smoke-free" environment and allow smoking on the premises. And it's not like the smoking areas were out of the way - they were usually just a bench off to the side with 10-15 people smoking there...
Smoke-free it wasn't; hell, it wasn't even smoke-resistant...
That is all.
4 comments:
Incidentally, with waterproof watches, there's quite a difference between what it states, and what it really means.
30m(90ft) - You can shower with it.
50m(150ft) - You can bathe(in a bathtub or similar) with it.
100m(300ft) - You can swim and snorkle with it, including underwater(but not scuba, or competitive freediving).
200m(600ft) - You can scubadive with it.
Anything less than 30m(100ft) - avoid unnecessary contact with water. It can survive being splashed when you wash your hands under a faucet.
And if it has a ATM designation instead of a meter/feet one, subtract 1, and multiply by 10 for meters. (IE: If it says 10 ATM, that means 90m). ATM means atmospheres, and just being at sea level is 1 ATM, then each additional 10 meters depth(in sea water, it's slightly more in fresh water) is another atmosphere.
/scuba diving instructor.
You're getting too technical. Were you really mad at the words on the sign or were you mad at them trying to tell you something that was untrue, yet stated as fact? You see the "new normal" all around and it registers in your mind. :)
Kind of like "unlimited" internet plans, that aren't.
US federal regulation effectively prohibits a watch seller from claiming 'waterproof' since about 1970. Instead we have water resistant--and if it is resistant to more than splash, a depth rating. Watch geeks generally say the depth rating is under ideal conditions with brand new seals, so leave some leeway when selecting a watch.
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